WARNING: Contain spoilers for Venom: Let Their Be Carnage
What the Venom sequel does best is really build on the odd couple relationship between Eddie and Venom in the first film. They are hilarious together from Venom's snarky lines when visiting the prison to his attempts to make Eddie cry at dinner with Anne. The film also sees a break-up as Venom and Eddie go their separate ways. This gives us perhaps the best scene in the film where Venom wanders around a fancy-dress club celebrating his freedom. It's interesting though that Venom struggles to keep most of his human hosts alive and it's highlighted that actually Venom really needs Eddie Brock, even if he doesn't always like to think that.
Carnage is formed in this film when Cletus Kasady takes a bit of Eddie when they tussle in prison and swallows the blood that Eddie emits. It's never really explained quite how a bit of Venom blood leads to a fully-formed and even more powerful symbiote being formed. Kasady's background is pretty similar to the comic books- here he killed his grandmother by pushing her down the stairs and his mother by throwing a hairdryer in her bath. Harrelson is fantastic at playing the creepy side of the serial killer but it would have been nice to see him go on the rampage pre-symbiote.
Shriek's origin is a little different to the comic books. Here Frances Barrison fell in love with Cletus Kasady when they were both in St Estes Home for Unwanted Children. She was separated from him when she was transferred to the Ravencroft Institute though she attempted to escape using her sonic powers which caused hearing damage to police officer Patrick Mulligan, who shot her causing the scar.
Speaking of which Mulligan is a more obscure character from the comic books. In the climax of the film we see him apparently killed by Shriek but he absorbed part of a symbiote and awoke, eyes now glowing blue. In the comic books Mulligan was the main host of the symbiote Toxin, an offspring of Carnage. Toxin is not so much of a pure villain as Carnage and in is often allied with Spider-Man. It's an intriguing end to the film which hints at a potential Venom 3, though it would be nice to see Venom fight something other than another symbiote.
Perhaps the biggest talking point of the film is the mid-credits scene. Eddie is now in hiding and is in a hotel room somewhere and is talking with Venom. Venom says he is going to tell Eddie about the symbiote's knowledge of other universes. Before this happens though there is a blinding light and Eddie and Venom are in a slightly different hotel room where a news report on the TV sees the MCU J.Jonah Jameson reveal to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
Now what does this mean? The obvious explanation is that Eddie and Venom have been somehow transported into the MCU- could this be due to Doctor Strange's spell in No Way Home? Or perhaps there's another reason the walls of the multi-verse are breaking down. It could lead to an appearance from Eddie and and Venom in No Way Home. I do wonder however if this was something of a tease and that really it was just Venom having a vision of another universe. The fact that the MCU room's occupant seeing Eddie perhaps goes against this idea but maybe Venom has the power to only briefly remain in another universe.
What we can say for sure is that this paves the way for Tom Hardy's Venom and Tom Holland's Spider-Man to come face to face at some point in the future, be it in No Way Home, Venom 3, or elsewhere. Venom seemed to immediately view Spider-Man as worth eating but given this is a relatively placid take on the character it's hard to imagine Eddie allowing Venom to even attempt to eat Peter Parker.
Comments
Post a Comment